Make a Great Date

By Julia Woodbury

Plan some great group dates with these fun ideas.

Educational Inexpensive	Have you ever toured your own city? Set out to discover what draws tourists to your town. Tour historical buildings, see your local zoo or aquarium, go read the plaques on memorials. See how much there is to discover right in your own town.
Educational Athletic Free	Take turns sharing your sporting skills. Teach the group how to play your favorite sport, and then take a turn being the student and learn from everyone else.
Artistic Free	Borrow a video camera and make a movie with props that you find around the house. Divide your group to make different movies and have an awards ceremony after viewing them all.
Service Food Free	Go on an ingredient scavenger hunt. Go to people’s homes to collect all the things you need to make delicious cookies, and then after you bake them, deliver samples to those who contributed.
Athletic Free	Be a kid again. Head over to the park and play childhood games like hide-and-seek or capture-the-flag.
Educational Artistic Inexpensive	Sign up for a one-day class at a local arts center and spend some time learning about photography, pottery, painting, or something else. Or, look around in your ward for someone who can teach you a unique talent and ask for a lesson for the group.
Food Inexpensive	Can’t go on a picnic? Get a group date together for an evening at “camp.” Put some cutout star constellations on the ceiling, make shadow puppets, play card or board games on the floor, and make some tinfoil dinners in the oven.
Educational Artistic Inexpensive	Tour a local art museum. You can try taking turns playing “I Spy.” Who can find a painting with a dog in it, or a sculpture made out of some strange material?
Service Free	Want a great date? Serve! You can rake a neighbor’s leaves, wash windows, visit a nursing home, or volunteer at a homeless shelter. If you want to add some daring, do secret acts of service, like quietly shoveling someone’s snow or leaving cookies on doorsteps.
Athletic Free	Switch up the seasons. If it is winter and there is snow on the ground, try playing croquet or golfing with brightly colored balls.
Service Free	Make a date out of giving a date. Know a couple who would like a night out? Offer to host their date by making and serving a candlelit dinner for them.
Athletic Free	Have a nice afternoon in a local park. Take a walk, ride bikes, throw a Frisbee, rollerblade, feed the birds, fly kites, have a picnic—a park has all sorts of fun possibilities.
Educational Inexpensive	Try an afternoon as a thrifty spender. Check out a nearby garage sale, thrift store, or farmer’s market and see what fun items you can find. For a fun twist, shop with a theme in mind or make a game of it to see who can find the strangest item.
Athletic More expensive	Go to a local amusement park or carnival where you can play in the batting cages, ride go-karts, play miniature golf, and play appropriate arcade games.
Food Inexpensive	Try going out at a different time of day. For example, go out to breakfast on a Saturday morning.
Food More expensive	Take fast food by storm and have a progressive meal. Select different restaurants around town and go to each one. Order drinks at one, appetizers at another, go somewhere new for your main course, and top it off with your favorite dessert in town.
Educational Food Inexpensive	Take a world tour from your table. Pick a place and make a meal from that country. Try learning more about that particular country by looking at tourist books or watching a film about it.
Athletic Free	If you have a park or large open field nearby, set up an obstacle course and have a tournament.
Athletic Free	Play sports together. If you feel like changing things up, try switching around the rules or adding funny new ones to make it unique.
Service More expensive	Buy some flats of flowers, plant them in beautiful arrangements in planter boxes, and give them to people in your neighborhood.
Service Athletic Free	Split into teams and go on a walk along a trail. Pick up any garbage you see and, at the end, give prizes for the strangest objects you find.
Service Free	Make someone else’s night by offering to babysit for some young couples in your ward. Make assignments within your group for games, snacks, and entertainment for the kids.
Educational Inexpensive	Go on a nature hike and learn about the plants and wildlife that you see along the way. Or, you can try an early morning hike. Pick a nice spot, bring along a picnic breakfast, and watch the sun rise.
Educational Free	Take a turn being bookworms. Go to a local library or bookstore and browse through the books. You can take turns reading children’s books to each other. Or look for the most interesting title, or the funniest chapter.
Artistic Inexpensive	Feeling dramatic? Put on a reader’s theater. Find a play that everyone is interested in, assign roles, and let the play begin!
Educational Free	Does your school have free music concerts? Make a date out of it and go see your school’s band, orchestra, or choir in action.
Athletic Free/Inexpensive	If you’re looking for a winter activity, try night skiing, sledding, building a snowman, or even having a snowball fight.
Athletic Inexpensive	Do you have friends who play sports? Go support them at a sporting activity. Show your spirit by wearing their colors.
Athletic Free	Learn how to swing, ballroom, or country dance and then show off your steps to your friends. Or, get in a group and learn a fun dance routine together.
Artistic Free	Find a poetry reading to attend, or create your own with food, friends, and your favorite poetic stanzas.
Artistic Free	Have a photo scavenger hunt or see who can get the most interesting shots of the same subject. If you’re using digital cameras, have a computer slideshow of all the photos you take.
Artistic Free	Write a song or work on an original melody together. Or try writing a new verse to one of your favorite songs.
Artistic Inexpensive	Have an art date. Make sculptures out of play dough, paint rocks, decorate or tie-dye shirts, or finger paint.
Educational Inexpensive	Have a starry, starry night. Study some astronomy, go to a planetarium, go stargazing, and make star-shaped cookies.
Artistic Free	Ever tried creating an outfit out of newspaper? Collect some bundles of newspaper, get a group together, make costumes, and have a fashion show to see what kinds of outrageous creations you can come up with.
Food Inexpensive	For something out of the ordinary, have a formal dinner in the park instead of in a fancy restaurant.
Artistic Free	Near a beach? Build sand castles. Make them as elaborate as you can and then have passersby or some friends judge your creations.

Photographs by Steve Bunderson